Monday, January 17, 2011

Orioles Announce Details About FanFest 2011

The Orioles have announced the details of their new FanFest autograph policy, including which players will appear and at what times. There will be five available time slots at four stations with three to four players per station. There also will be a complementary kids area, for which the players appearing won't be announced in advance.

Children ages 4-14 will have a specially designated Kids Only player autograph station presented by ESSKAY that is free of charge and will operate continuously throughout the day. All other ESSKAY autograph stations at FanFest will require the advance purchase of autograph vouchers exclusively at orioles.com for $15 each, with all of the proceeds to benefit children's charities through OriolesREACH.

There will be 250 vouchers available for each autograph session, guaranteeing that each fan purchasing a voucher for a particular session will receive an autograph from each of the players at the station. Fans will be able to print their vouchers at home and must present them to the attendant at the appropriate autograph session, shortening the amount of wait time in autograph lines. Fans must be in line for their autograph session no later than 30 minutes after the session begins.

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The complimentary Kids Only area at FanFest will operate throughout the day in a free-flowing system. Players signing in this area will not be announced in advance. Youths ages 4-14 may go through this line as many times as they would like as players rotate through the station.

I won't be at FanFest, but I'd recommend targeting Station 2 at 4:40 p.m. for what I like to call the "Past, Present, and Future" station: Tippy Martinez, Nick Markakis, and Chris Tillman. It's nice to mix in a little history with the current stars. How many times do you think Tippy gets asked about those pick-offs?